HAHN WANTS SINGLE L.A. GANG INJUNCTION.Byline: Rick Orlov Staff Writer Without explaining how it could be done legally, Mayor James Hahn For the Iowa politician, see . James Kenneth "Jim" Hahn (born July 3, 1950) is an American politician from the Democratic Party. He was the Deputy City Attorney (1975-1979), City Controller (1981-1985), City Attorney (1985-2001) and Mayor of Los Angeles, California said Monday that he wants to go to court to get citywide injunctions against all gang members to attack the culture that supports them. Under Hahn's proposal, all of Los Angeles would be included in a gang injunction, preventing identified gang members from meeting and organizing in any part of the city. Los Angeles now Wikipedia is not the place for advertisement or self-advertising. Los Angeles Now, a documentary by Producer/Director Phillip Rodriguez, made its national high definition broadcast premiere on PBS’ Independent Lens series in November 2004. has 22 gang injunctions covering one-fourth of the city's gang members. ``I am putting gang members on notice,'' Hahn said at a campaign news conference at the Challengers Boys & Girls Club in South Los Angeles South Los Angeles is the official name for a large geographic and cultural area lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central Los Angeles, and is still sometimes called South Central. . ``One of the things Los Angeles has exported to the nation is this gang culture. Well, I think we have a way to show the nation how to end it.'' Although he was city attorney for 16 years and gang violence often was worse than it is today, Hahn never sought such a sweeping measure and legal experts questioned whether such an injunction would be legal and how it could be enforced effectively. ``It seems to us to be an unfortunate nonsolution to a serious problem,'' said Ricardo Garcia of the American Civil Liberties Union American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nonpartisan organization devoted to the preservation and extension of the basic rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution. , which has often opposed gang injunctions as violations of the right to assemble. ``If they go ahead with this, we would look closely at it, but it seems like it would unfairly target young people of color Noun 1. people of color - a race with skin pigmentation different from the white race (especially Blacks) people of colour, colour, color race - people who are believed to belong to the same genetic stock; "some biologists doubt that there are important and try to limit where they can go in the city. The gang injunctions now are carefully tied to criminal activity. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if they can make that case for the entire city.'' Even the City Attorney's Office wasn't sure whether Hahn's proposal would work. A spokesman for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said the office would study the plan. ``The city attorney, like the mayor, wants to see a gang-free city and supports the gang-injunction concept as it is,'' spokesman Jonathan Diamond said. ``But, we haven't seen what the mayor is proposing.'' Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who is challenging Hahn in the May 17 runoff and is a former head of the ACLU ACLU: see American Civil Liberties Union. in Los Angeles, would not comment on the plan, campaign aides said. Hahn said the proposal was not a campaign stunt and dismissed criticism. ``Everybody worries about the constitutional rights of gang members, but what about the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens?'' Rick Orlov, (213) 978-0390 rick.orlov(at)dailynews.com |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion